Live at the Fillmore East and West
Page 33
“Helium balloons bobbed from the orchestra,” reported the New York Post, “the kids shouted from the Family Circle to the Grand Tier, waved to each other, smoked pot when the ushers weren’t looking . . . in a delightful display of irreverence.”8
Ironically, just a few hours before he would slip hundred-dollar bills to bring Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young back for an encore, Graham found The Who far more difficult to bring back.
After the 8:00 p.m. Tommy show, the crowd were on their feet for fifteen minutes, screaming for an encore. Bill Graham then knocked on The Who’s dressing-room door and ordered them to go back out and play some more. Townshend was still angry about the May 16, 1969, fire at the Fillmore East, when he’d been arrested.
“I asked him to tell the audience to go home,” recalled Pete Towns-hend in his autobiography. “He refused, so I did it myself. When the crowd realized what I was saying they started to jeer. I threw my mike stand into the pit and stalked off.”
Walking past Graham in the hallway, Townshend fixed him in the eye and said, “It’s easy to bring us on, Bill. It’s much harder to get us off.”
A week later, Bill Graham restaged Tommy at the Berkeley Community Theater and tried to mend fences with The Who. On the second night, he arranged to have three klieg lights turned onto the audience in a Fillmore East–style salute. Then after the show, Graham gave the valuable lights to The Who, who were delighted.
“Bill Graham had redeemed himself,” said Townshend.
On Wednesday, June 17, Laura Nyro played three nights at the Fillmore East, with Miles Davis as her special guest. Davis’s new L.P. Bitches Brew had just gone gold, selling half a million albums to become his bestselling record to date. Bill Graham had started booking the jazz legend’s shows through his Millard Agency, and the two of them quickly came to blows.
“We had our disagreements,” said Davis, “because Bill is a tough motherfucking businessman, and I don’t take no shit.”9
On Friday morning at 8:22 a.m., the furious trumpeter sent a telegram to Graham, back in San Francisco, calling an upcoming San Diego gig an insult. Davis wrote:
I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT A PROMOTER COULD BE SO DUMB AND CHEAP. I AM NOT A $2500.00 PERFORMER. THE PROMOTER KNOWS THAT OUR BAND WILL ENHANCE ANY MUSICAL CONCERT IN THE WORLD AND WE’RE NOT ABOUT TO ENHANCE IT FOR $2500.00. WE DON’T NEED THAT KIND OF MONEY. YOU KNOW OUR VALUE. IN OTHER WORDS BILL I WON’T PLAY A $2500.00 CONCERT EVEN THOUGH I KNOW YOU’RE HUSTLING FOR US.
RIGHT ON FOR YOU BILL FOR WORKING SO HARD. WE LOVE YOU SWASTIKA AND ALL MILES.
Ten days later, the furious trumpeter sent Graham another telegram after a conversation with Laura Nyro’s manager, David Geffen:
DAVID GEFFEN CLAIMS THAT HE WAS TO MATCH YOUR SALARY FOR ME FOR THE ENGAGEMENT WITH LAURA NYRO AT FILLMORE. I CAN’T BELIEVE THAT A MAN WHO WANTS TO HANDLE MY AFFAIRS RESPECTS MY MUSIC SO MUCH MEANING TWO AND TWO THAT’S WHORES MONEY. MILES.
The next morning, Miles fired off another telegram after Bill Graham had presumably called to find out what was wrong.
THIS IS WHAT’S BUGGING ME. DAVID GEFFEN SAID THAT LAURA SAID ‘I WANT MILES TO PLAY WITH ME AT THE FILLMORE NO MATTER WHAT HIS PRICE IS.’ DAVID GEFFEN TOLD ME THAT LAURA SAID SHE WOULDN’T PLAY WITHOUT ME AT THE FILLMORE NO MATTER WHAT MY PRICE AND SHE’D PAY HALF.
YOU THEN CALL BACK AND TOLD HER PEOPLE THAT MY PRICE WAS 4,000 DOLLARS. SHE THEN PAID 2,000 DOLLARS AND YOU PAID 2,000 DOLLARS. SHE MADE 23,000 DOLLARS. YOU MADE 23,000 DOLLARS. BLACK MILES MADE 4,000 DOLLARS. YOU ASKED ME TO DO IT FOR THE EXPOSURE. WHICH IS A DISGUISE TO MAKE MONEY—IF YOUR [sic] GOING TO BE A PROMOTER UNDER THE DISGUISE OF EXPOSURE AND SELL ME TO YOURSELF FOR NOTHING AND MAKE ALL THE PROFIT AND I GET NO PERCENTAGE OR FRONT MONEY—(NOW I NEED 10,000 DOLLARS FOR THE GOVERNMENT. WHO DO I TURN TO YOU OR LAURA NYRO OR JACK WITTEMORE [Whittemore] OR SANTANA OR D.S.T’S AND ETC.?)
THIS MAKES ME SO SICK UNTIL I CAN’T SPEAK OF IT ON THE PHONE. BUT IT’S BUGGING ME UNTIL I CAN’T SLEEP. SOMETHING IN ME SAYS HERE’S A GOOD MAN—BUT WHEN IT COMES TO MONEY ALL GOOD MEN LIKE ALL BAD MEN TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES FIRST. I KNOW YOUR AGENCY NEEDS ME, BUT SINCE YOU’RE GOING TO PLAY THAT WAY WHY NOT GIVE ME A PERCENTAGE OF THE AGENCY AND LET ME RETURN SOME OF THE SUPER MONEY THAT YOU WILL EARN FROM ME.
MY SECOND SENSE KEEPS ME FROM BEING A COMPLETE FOOL. BILL, I’M SURE THERE ARE OTHER WAYS TO MAKE MONEY, BUT DON’T USE ME.
P.S. THIS TELEGRAM IS FOR YOU TO LOOK AT AND STARE AT AND REMEMBER AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT.
MILES DAVIS.
Bill Graham replied by return mail, copying Davis’s agent Jack Whittemore. He was particularly hurt to be called a racist.
My first reaction to your telegram is disappointment in you that you could make such insinuations relating to my integrity in the handling of Miles Davis, the musician. Your telegram to me is unrealistic, unfair and without foundation. It does not take into consideration what I have tried to do for you, Miles Davis, the creative musician. Not as a black man or a white man, but as one man to another. For you to imply that I have taken advantage of black Miles is for you to also suggest that I am not worthy of representing you. If that be the case, then so be it. But be sure of one thing, I try never to take advantage of any man without justification.
From the first day that I became involved in your representation, it has been my feeling that, being a great artist, you should be exposed to a bigger and more varied audience than you had been in the past. To some extent, we all have tried to “play the game.”
Your earnings at Fillmore East may have seemed like short money to you; but the gig did land for you a feature story with photos in the New York Times, a feature story in the Village Voice and, last month, a feature article in Time Magazine.
Don’t ever misunderstand me, Mr. Davis; it is your ability as a musician that has brought you the recognition you are receiving. But don’t ever dare underestimate the necessity of exposure. It is the combination of your ability and the exposure I have helped to get for you that has made it possible for you, for the very first time, to have a record high on the charts. The result of it all will be a higher income for you and, admittedly, for me. Based on your telegram, you do not believe that my having gotten involved with you had anything to do with potential earnings for you
My books for your date in New York are open to you for you to see what my profits were when you played there with Laura. I need not defend my actions to you or anybody. My record stands for itself; but I do think it is important for you to know who I am. I give you 48 hours to decide whether to trust me or not. Should I not hear from you, I will assume that it is the latter and I will continue to finish whatever projects I have started for you. After that, you’ll be on your own and I sincerely wish you the best. This is not a threat, Mr. Davis, but I will never work with a man who does not trust me. Your opinion of me as a producer and manager is based on a short relationship. Check me out, Mr. Davis; I’ve been a man for 40 years.10
Within a couple of days, Miles Davis had made up with Bill Graham and was booked on the same bill as Santana for the summer’s Fillmore East at Tanglewood concerts.
On Wednesday, June 24, Janis Joplin attended the glitzy New York premiere of Myra Breckenridge, taking along Johnny Winter as her date. She sported an ostrich-tail headpiece, complete with pink and green feather boas, and a cape.
Janis drew up in front of the movie theater on 49th Street and Broadway in a stretch limo with the albino guitarist. It was a mob scene, with police holding back the crowd who had come to see Racquel Welch and the other stars walk the red carpet.
After the movie and reception, Winter went back to Janis’s hotel at One Fifth Avenue, where they reminisced about growing up in the Texas panhandle.
“Janis was a real sweetheart,” said Winter, “but she was drinking too much and taking too much dope.”
The next day Janis made her second appearance on the Dick Cavett
Show, where she introduced the Full Tilt Boogie Band. Janis was in high spirits, wearing a feather-boa headdress and a two-piece purple velvet suit inlaid with embroidered silver.
After singing “Move Over,” running around the stage like a whirling dervish, with the Full Tilt Boogie Band solidly behind her, an out-of-breath Janis sat down to be interviewed by Cavett.
“Janis,” he told her, “it’s a shame you couldn’t do an up-tune for us.”
Then Cavett asked her about the song she had just sung.
“I wrote the one we just did,” she replied. “It’s about me. Did you ever see those mule carts? There’s a dumb mule up there right, and they have a long stick with a string and carrot, which they hang over the mule’s nose and he runs after it all day long.”
“Who’s the man in this parable?” asked Cavett. “The mule or the person holding the carrot?”
“No, the woman is the mule,” replied Janis, “chasing something that somebody’s always teasing her with.”
“Constantly chasing a man and it always eludes her?” he asked.
“Well, they just always hold up something more than they’re prepared to give.”
“I have to defend my entire sex, ladies and gentlemen.”
“Go right ahead,” Janis replied, to audience applause.
Then Cavett asked if she sat down every morning to write a song.
“You just make it up,” replied Janis. “I don’t write songs. I make them up. Sometimes I write down the words, so I don’t forget them.”
Cavett then asked what she thought about when she was singing.
“I’m not really thinking much,” said Janis. “You just sort of try not to feel.”
“Do you ever get back to Port Arthur, Texas?” Cavett suddenly asked.
“No, but I’m going back in August, man,” said Janis, suddenly brightening up, “and guess what I’m doing? I’m going to my tenth annual high school reunion. Hey, would you like to go with me?”
“Well I don’t have many friends in your high school class,” quipped Cavett.
“I don’t either, believe me. That’s why I’m going.”
He then asked if she thought she’d have a lot to say at the reunion, and whether she had many friends at school.
“They laughed me out of class, out of town, and out of the state,” she replied with a wry smile. “So I’m going home.”
In the second half of the show, Myra Breckenridge star Racquel Welch came on to promote her new movie.
“It’s a full-on smash,” declared the sex symbol, “and I’m really happy. Janis was there.”
“You were looking good,” Janis told her, “but the movie’s too choppy . . . not that I know anything about movies, but I couldn’t understand it. It kept changing all the time.”11
“Yeah, well. It’s about change,” replied Welch angrily.
“I’ll drink to that,” said Janis, lighting a cigarette in a long white holder as the audience applauded.
Years later, Dick Cavett would discuss that poignant moment, when Janis announced she was attending her high school reunion.
“I think there were two Janises,” he said. “There was the high school girl who desperately wanted acceptance, and that character she created, which was the tough-talking, tough-drugging, drinking rock ’n’ roll star.”12
Three days after the Dick Cavett Show, Janis joined the Festival Express for a five-day musical train trip across Canada, stopping off at various cities to perform concerts. Also along for the ride were the Grateful Dead, the New Riders of the Purple Sage, Mountain, Delaney and Bonnie, Rick Danko of The Band, and Buddy Guy.
The twelve-coach train departed in Toronto and wound its way west through Saskatoon and Winnipeg to the final show in Calgary. It was a nonstop party, and the performers drank the bar car dry several times. There was also a dope shortage, as no one wanted to risk taking marijuana over the border. So, some of the roadies were sent off to score.
“It was like Woodstock on wheels,” said John Cooke. “We had a great deal of fun . . . but the train was special because we were with all these other musicians.”13
Janis loved all the attention, and her new Kris Kristofferson song, “Me and Bobby McGee,” became the unofficial theme of the Festival Express.
“Janis was the hot shit on the train,” recalled Mountain lead guitarist Leslie West. “We would stop in certain cities, and in between the cars Janis would go and wave to her fans.”
As a joke, West asked his New York stripper girlfriend, Geri Miller, whom he had brought along, to stand between the cars ahead of Janis and take off her top when the train arrived at the next town.
“All of a sudden the kids were going, ‘Wow!’ said West, “and Janis is screaming, ‘Where’s all my people?’ ”14
Janis had a great time during the train trip, proudly boasting of getting Jerry Garcia totally drunk.
“Janis was the presiding spirit of this journey,” reported Rolling Stone, “the bacchanalian Little Red Riding Hood with her bag full of tequila and lemons, lurching from car to car like some tropical bird with streaming feathers.15
On June 27, Bill Graham took out a full-page advertisement in Billboard magazine announcing that both his Fillmores were fighting for survival. The ad warned that managers, agents, and rock bands were pricing themselves out of the theater concert business.
“Economics have taken the music from the clubs,” stated Graham, “from the clubs, ballrooms and concert halls to the larger coliseums and festivals.”
And he warned that his twin temples of rock were in imminent danger, as there were not enough major acts to replace the ones now playing the bigger venues like Madison Square Garden.
“Once one got to the Seventies,” said Kip Cohen, “there was a big shift and things got harder and uglier. There was a change. A change in the music. A change in the audience. A change in the attitude.”16
Cohen said that the Fillmores could no longer compete with the bigger venues that paid the artists far more money and satisfied their increasingly inflated egos.
“We had something to sell for three years,” he said, “and then it was not something that we could sell anymore. Could we sell it to the audience? Yes. But not to the artist.”17
On Saturday, July 4, Janis Joplin stopped off in Seattle on her way back to San Francisco. She ran into an old friend named Eddie West and spent the night drinking and setting off firecrackers from her hotel balcony.
Janis boasted to him of her sexual exploits on the Festival Express, complaining that she had gotten laid only 65 times, when there had been 365 people aboard.
At one point, West asked her what she thought she’d be doing at thirty.
“I’ll never see thirty,” replied Janis.18
Bill Graham’s shows that summer of 1970 were becoming more and more adventurous. On July 7, he staged the first of three Fillmore East at Tanglewood shows with The Who, Jethro Tull, and It’s a Beautiful Day. Two weeks later Joe Cocker would star in the second one, with Santana and Miles Davis booked for the third in mid-August.
On July 9, he presented “Dead At Midnight,” a run of four shows beginning at midnight, with the New Riders of the Purple Sage opening for the Grateful Dead. These would be classic Dead shows, often finishing well after the sun came up the next morning.
“The thing about the Fillmore East,” said Mickey Hart, “was that we could play all night. There were no curfews on the East Coast. In most other halls there were always curfews.”19
At the end of July, Hot Tuna headlined a weekend at the Fillmore East, the first time they had played there without Jefferson Airplane. Leon Russell was the opening act. The first eponymous-named Hot Tuna album had just been released, and it was a sure sign that the Airplane was now splitting into different factions.
“Jorma and I were working on material that didn’t
quite fit into the format of Jefferson Airplane,” explained Jack Casady. “So the Fillmore East was a great opportunity for us to start putting out this other kind of music.”20
“Hot Tuna, a subsidiary of the Jefferson Airplane, the San Francisco band,” wrote Mike Jahn in the New York Times, “played as quiet a concert as has ever been heard at the Fillmore East.”21
That summer Bill Graham hired Gary L. Jackson to run the Fillmore West. The twenty-five-year-old was already a veteran on the San Francisco music scene, having co-owned the Matrix nightclub, where Jefferson Airplane had started out. He was also a trained accountant.
Jackson had asked Graham to stage a benefit for a friend of his running for Congress. And when he took some flyers over to the Fillmore West, Graham offered him the job on the spot.
“We got along famously,” said Jackson, “and he basically gave me everything I asked for.”
Jackson says there was a healthy rivalry between the Fillmore East and West.
“We kind of looked at ourselves as the leader,” he said. “I went to the Fillmore East just to check it out. It was a nice venue but it’s not in the greatest neighborhood in town.”
Santana drummer Michael Shrieve said playing the Fillmore East was a totally different experience from playing the Fillmore West.
“It was New York City,” he said. “It was a different feeling. It was edgier down in the East Village. The difference was we were on the road when we were playing there, and it was exciting.”
Shrieve said Santana always looked forward to playing the Fillmore East, and it never disappointed.
“The hippies in New York were different than the hippies in San Francisco,” he said. “And they were very welcoming of the band and really enjoyed it.”22
The Allman Brothers Band drummer Butch Trucks said that the Fillmore West was far looser than its eastern sibling.
“Bill [Graham] would allow us to do a lot more jamming at the Fillmore West,” he said. “I don’t remember doing much jamming at the Fillmore East until right toward the end. And Bill ran it much more like a theater.”